Obviousness and Spectacular Ignorance
by LoLoGreeneVines
Summary: In which Sherlock can't guess John's password, even when John tells him what it is.


"_John!_"

John recognised Sherlock's "help-me-I've-just-spilled-five-molar-hydrochloric-acid-on-my-hand" voice and flew down the stairs to the living room, mentally preparing himself for whatever monstrosity of an accident his clumsy flatmate had been responsible for this time, trying to remember where the bicarbonate of soda was in case he needed to neutralise a reaction (John may not have been as brilliant at chemistry as Sherlock was, but he remembered neutralisation reactions from his chemistry A-level) and preparing an apology to Mrs. Hudson for anything Sherlock might have broken.

Instead of finding his flatmate injured on the floor or the kitchen worktop dissolving in front of his eyes, as he expected, when John reached the landing and hurtled through the door he was greeted by the sight of Sherlock curled up catlike on the sofa, typing furiously on John's laptop, hitting the return key and then scowling at the monitor as if it had personally insulted him. John took a look around and realised that there had been no experiment, that he had been dragged out of bed too early on a Sunday just because his mad flatmate was angry with his laptop.

"John, tell me your password," Sherlock demanded, shooting the computer a look of pure venom, crossing his arms and sticking out his bottom lip in the manner of a particularly petulant toddler.

John grinned, unable to believe that Sherlock was stumped only by the most obvious password John could think of when in the past he had had to spend a maximum of three and a half minutes guessing before the password came to him, along with all of John's files and information.

Well, if Sherlock was choosing this moment to be so spectacularly ignorant, John didn't see anything wrong with having some fun at the expense of the consulting detective.

"John, please just tell me, I don't want to have to brute-force your computer..."

John smiled. "Obvious, is it not?" Sherlock's scowl only deepened.

"No, John, it's not obvious, were it obvious I would have been in half an hour ago."

_Blimey,_ John thought. _He's spent half an hour at my laptop and he still hasn't got it. The idiot. It would have been far quicker for him to have fetched his own laptop from the coffee table._

"Sherlock," John said, as the consulting toddler drew breath and addressed John impatiently.

"Yes, John? Are you going to grow up and tell me, or will I have to take my special programme to it?" John was all too aware of Sherlock's "special programme", the latter had discovered it while browsing the internet and taken great joy in taking the loaded memory stick along to Scotland Yard and discreetly helping himself to cold cases listed in their databases. Lestrade was always puzzled when he found e-mails in his inbox, always from a different address, giving him names from cases which occurred decades ago.

Eager to ensure Sherlock didn't accidentally break anything with his inexpertise in computing (John had heard the term "script-kiddie" bandied around, which didn't inspire much confidence) John spoke again. "Sherlock..."

However, this did nothing to placate Sherlock, who continued his tirade. "Look, John, I've been living with you for two years now and I've never had any trouble getting into your computer, no doubt you made it easy for me because you have nothing to hide. It is completely unreasonable that you would suddenly decide to restrict my access to your computer because that is an unnecessary change and you know how much I dislike unnecessary change..."

"_Sherlock._" John said, raising his voice slightly over Sherlock's lecture. Sherlock broke off and looked at him in frustration.

"Well, if you're not going to tell me..." he said, reaching into the pocket of his dressing gown and withdrawing a small USB flash drive.

John rolled his eyes. "I've already told you what the password is, you idiot!"

Sherlock's eyes widened and he dropped his memory stick in surprise. He sat still for a few seconds, and John could practically hear his brain whirring as Sherlock attempted to go over the last day's worth of interaction with John for anything that could potentially have been a password. John mentally debated watching him struggle for a minute, but ultimately decided to be kind.

"Oh, give me the laptop," John said, his voice full of resignation. When Sherlock failed to budge, John sat down on the sofa next to him and started typing.

Sherlock watched, his features expressionless, as John's fingers spelt out the word which had been a great source of frustration to him for the better part of the last hour.

S-h-e-r-l-o-c-k

John pressed the return key, and the login screen faded away to be replaced by John's desktop. John glanced at Sherlock and found the detective scrutinising him.

After a few seconds, Sherlock enquired "why?"

John had to fight the urge to roll his eyes again. "Because I thought it would be obvious."

"Well, it wasn't," Sherlock huffed, bringing up his website and pointedly ignoring John, who grinned to himself and retired to the kitchen to make their morning coffee.

* * *

**Author's notes: There are a few parallels here with ASIB, but I wasn't really thinking about that when I wrote it. For the record, I'm in the "Johnlock is an epic bromance" camp, but if you want to read romance into what I have written that is entirely up to you. :)**


End file.
